While just about everyone has been brought up to trust that prayer involves pleading to God to help, save, fix problems and bring us things nowadays, that’s not true prayer nor its purpose. Prayer in A Course in Miracles (ACIM) is quite different and incredibly beautiful. Greater than a song, it really is joyous exchange of Love and thanks between God and His Creations that employs the forgiveness process to improve the mind until the Prayer Song is all that remains. It’s the ticket home so understanding true prayer, and forgiveness, will probably be worth the time in retraining the mind.
Prayer is exchanging (sharing) a Song of Love and Creation or judgments of the ego based on what you ask for (agree with) in the mind. There is absolutely no other way. In the Course, the mind (content) is split between God and the ego; and you are choosing all the time with a side as cause for effect.Forms (everything of the world) are miscreations reflecting the ego’s judgmental thought system. We’ve managed to get up (miscreated this world) and will cease anytime by correcting your brain (forgiveness). True prayer requires this correction of the mind as God has nothing in connection with forms.
What Prayer is Not:
Because you are always deciding, what you ask for once you pray is what counts. Once you plead in prayer to possess God fix a form problem with another form problem, you are asking the ego mind for help (not God). Those forms and needs are deemed more important than God’s Love that may remain hidden to the amount you choose the illusion.
All external things (forms) are needs. Other labels are wants, desires, status, problems, sickness, human love (special relationships), gifts and goals nowadays, etc. They are what you choose as substitutes for God’s Love and the ego will distort the purpose of prayer through the use of them to further the illusion. Therefore, prayer can’t be about “forms” or “needs” in any way.
The Purpose of Prayer:
The Song of Prayer is defined by the Course as a Song of Creation, Love and gratitude being sung from the Father to the Son and returned from the Son to the Father. God gave this gift of Love to His Son at Creation in order that it is a single voice shared by both Creator and Created. Continuously sharing Love and Creation back and forth extends them forever in eternity. That’s prayer’s purpose.
In this form world of illusion, this prayer is still a gift from God offered through the Holy Spirit, the memory of God in your brain. It’s how you reach God in the illusion. Whoever has ever remembered the littlest instant of the all-inclusive joy must begin questioning what he is choosing (praying for) and how to change his mind so he is able to have that all the time.
True Prayer and Forgiveness:
True prayer is: (1) asking to receive what is already there, The Song; and, (2) along the way, using forgiveness (correction of your brain) to stop the ego forms or what is not really there. Joining with Love in true prayer is requesting nothing (i.e., no illusion, forms or needs) and that means you find yourself receiving everything (Love). One problem. One solution.
Forgiveness (correction of the mind) is a part of true prayer and makes the procedure go quicker. Prayer is timeless and continues on forever, and forgiveness may be the illusory ladder with time that returns the mind to the endless exchange. Forgiveness disappears when the mind is completely corrected and remembers only The Song.
The big secret of true prayer and forgiveness is to concentrate on disregarding and giving up the things you think you want and need in the illusion, even the specifics, as this asks for the mind to be returned to Truth (Love). You are not furthering the illusion. You’re agreeing with God that (a) you’re a mind; (b) this form world is not real; (c) you made a blunder; and, (d) you can choose again.
Using correction of your brain (forgiveness) places those forms and needs on God’s altar, or in his hands, as idols which are only whatever you have chosen to be more important than God’s Love. No longer wanting anything before His Love, the only real effect God could return can be your remembrance of Him. The more you quit, the more meaningless the world becomes and the faster you sing His Song.
Prayer in the Illusion:
Because the mind still resides with God, the Course says you don’t have to decide alone and really should ask the Holy Spirit for help deciding and await the answer. Otherwise, you’ve already decided with the ego. If you must decide on the spot, you’ll get the correct “need” answer right then.An answer can be an echo of God’s Voice from the Song of Prayer. You’re not asking for the echo itself. a course in miracles online You’re choosing the gift of Love from The Song giving up all form needs. “Need” answers in the illusion are contained within that echo even during the correction of your brain process. They are met at the level of the forgiveness ladder you can understand and accept.
Want A Thriving Business? Avoid A TRAINING COURSE In Miracles!
